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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

God is truth

Enloe said:<< Not all revealed truth is propositional and abstract. Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, is not a proposition nor an abstraction. But that's an easy one that nobody would even think of disputing. For more examples of non-propositional, non-abstract revealed truth, see the historical and poetical books of the Old Testament, or the apocalyptic of the prophetic books. There are propositions contained in these books, but the form of the revelation in these books is not itself propositional. I.e., narrative and verse are not propositions. In the world that God made (as opposed to the world that the Greeks wished the gods had made) "truth" simply is not confined to propositions, but takes all kinds of other forms as well. In particular, it takes forms that relate to beauty and goodness, and the trio thus make up "the three faces of culture." >>

I don't know if our disagreement here is merely semantic or goes deeper than that. You seem to be confounding truth itself with a mode or medium of communication.

Yes, Jesus Christ, as God incarnate, is also truth incarnate. Jesus is, to that extent, a concrete object.

But as an object of faith--as an epistemic rather than ontological object--we know him by description rather than acquaintance. To believe in Christ is to believe in certain revealed propositions about Christ.

To contrast propositional revelation with a variety of literary genres is a false dichotomy. Figurative usage is still propositional. There is, first of all, the meaning of the figurative usage itself. Then there's the literal referent for which it stands. At both levels it is asserting something to be the case. The language remains referential and assertoric. The same can be said of narrative theology.

<< Many times we act out of trust or lack of trust of people. Even if or when the basis of authority is an abstract proposition (which is not always, as I've said) it is acted on by people. Proposition as cannot be RIGIDLY separated from people. This is an implied endorsement of gnosticism in the sense of the elevation of "more important mind" (or "spirit") over "mere matter." That's the problem with all the proposition-talk in Reformish circles: it's not that there are no propositions in Christianity and that they aren't important, it's just that Christianity isn't REDUCIBLE to propositions. >>

I don’t know who you’re shadowboxing with when you set things up this way. Who is saying that propositions can be “rigidly” separated from people? Who is saying that Christianity is “reducible” to propositions?

Except for hyper-Clarkians, I don’t know anyone in the Reformed community who takes such an extreme view.

Yes, there’s more to faith than bare belief or sheer knowledge. There is also the element of trust. But trust in what? What is the relation between belief and trust? Trust is the measure of my confidence in the truth of what I believe. Otherwise, I would not be acting on it.

<< In fact, against your friends James White and Eric Svendsen I have often deployed Warfield's illustration of revelation being like light poured through stained-glass windows as proof that their rather odd concept that mediating factors on our thinking such as history and culture make knowing truth and doing exegesis impossible. >>

Well, I can’t speak for White or Svendsen, yet I agree with you that Cartesian exegesis is impossible. But whoever denied the role of “mediating factors” like history and culture? Does anyone of worth on the opposing side deny that general proposition? Doesn’t the issue come down to the precise nature of the relation, and not the existence of the relation itself?

Isn’t Svendsen, for one, conversant with the history of interpretation? Doesn’t he take that into account when he exegetes Scripture? Isn’t Svendsen conversant with the life-situation of Scripture? Doesn’t he take that into account when he exegetes Scripture?

At the same time, there can be a conflict between the original setting and the history of interpretation. We cannot absolutize history and culture to the point where they trumps original intent or substitute a situational context alien to the original setting.

Scripture must be in a position to correct church history and correct social conditioning. We are not enslaved to our social conditioning. We can become self-aware of the mediating factors that shape our outlook. And that enables us to compare and contrast our historical viewpoint with the viewpoint Scripture, which--in turn--enables us to bring our sociological perspective in line with the word of God. So I’m still unclear on what you find fault with in the opposing position.

6 comments:

I'm going to have to cut this off due to time constraints, but I thank you for your patience throughout. Same format as previous times.

(1) But as an object of faith--as an epistemic rather than ontological object--we know him by description rather than acquaintance. To believe in Christ is to believe in certain revealed propositions about Christ.

The disagreement may be semantic, I don't know. I would like to think that I "believe in" Christ in a deeper manner than mere intellectual acceptance of propositions about Him. I don't imagine, like some Romantic, that feelings in my soul are paramount in knowing Christ, but (and I assume you believe this also) saving faith in Christ is certainly more than comprehending correct propositions about Christ. Even the demons have that kind of faith. At any rate, of course I agree that Scripture contains propositions about Christ. That's not up for debate. If anything up for debate it's whether "knowledge" and "truth" are confined to the realm of propositions. Maybe you don't believe that, and if not, then it's not a debate between you and me.

(2) To contrast propositional revelation with a variety of literary genres is a false dichotomy. Figurative usage is still propositional. There is, first of all, the meaning of the figurative usage itself. Then there's the literal referent for which it stands. At both levels it is asserting something to be the case. The language remains referential and assertoric. The same can be said of narrative theology.

Perhaps it is an issue of Clarkians (or of Cartesians), but while "God is like a mountain, never changing" is "assertoric" and looks propositional, it's not invoking what a lot of people seem to mean by "propositional." That is, it's not invoking mental abstractions of the kind you find in Systematic Theologies. It's a word picture, a metaphor, a sign signifying something else. And anyway, "He shall cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you trust" and "Then the Lord said to Abraham, go up out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees and go to the land which I shall sho you" aren't propositions, but they are certainly revelation. It's simply not true to describe Scripture as "propositional" in any kind of totalizing sense.

(3) I don’t know who you’re shadowboxing with when you set things up this way. Who is saying that propositions can be “rigidly” separated from people? Who is saying that Christianity is “reducible” to propositions?

I was describing how I take certain forms of Reformish arguments, such as ones which rely overly heavily on categories like "propositional revelation" and its associated complex of mere abstract and purportedly non-mediated mentalisms, and so correspondingly downplay things which are incarnate and mediated--like, oh, sacraments and community. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.

(4) Well, I can’t speak for White or Svendsen, yet I agree with you that Cartesian exegesis is impossible. But whoever denied the role of “mediating factors” like history and culture? Does anyone of worth on the opposing side deny that general proposition? Doesn’t the issue come down to the precise nature of the relation, and not the existence of the relation itself

I apologize; I tend to assume that ringing endorsements from men like that mean that they think you are on the same page as them. After all, they once gave ME ringing endorsements, too, only to completely dissociate themselves from me the moment they found out I wasn't going to be a naive Cartesian like them, wasn't going to reduce "truth" to the results of expert application of grammatical technology, and was willing to believe better of those outside of the hallowed halls of Evangelicalism than they are. I'm glad to see you state your dissent from Cartesianism, and I agree that the question is the NATURE of the relation of truth to history and culture and not merely the EXISTENCE of the relation. Unlike with those men, it might very well be possible to have a constructive conversation about history and theology with you.

(5) At the same time, there can be a conflict between the original setting and the history of interpretation. We cannot absolutize history and culture to the point where they trumps original intent or substitute a situational context alien to the original setting.

I agree with this, too. This is why I find the work of, say, Wright, to be so helpful. He doesn't assume that the original intent and context of the New Testament, particularly the Pauline epistles, was a version of the 16th-century Roman Catholic / Reformed Catholic situation. Consequently he is able to say a lot of things that the Reformed tradition says, and yet not pretend that Luther was on exactly the same page as Paul. He is able to learn from history (i.e., Second Temple Judaism) rather than retrojecting complicated 17th century debates about "semi-Pelagianism" onto Scripture and pretending, via grammatical technology, to merely be reproducing the "literal meaning" of Paul by so doing.

(6) Scripture must be in a position to correct church history and correct social conditioning. We are not enslaved to our social conditioning. We can become self-aware of the mediating factors that shape our outlook. And that enables us to compare and contrast our historical viewpoint with the viewpoint Scripture, which--in turn--enables us to bring our sociological perspective in line with the word of God. So I’m still unclear on what you find fault with in the opposing position.

You're far more nuanced in your position than some of your friends, I'll grant you that. Kudos to you for not shallowly playing the "relativism" card merely because talk of historical and social conditioning on perceptions of truth is raised. I agree with the principles you state here about being able to become aware of the factors which have made us what we are and thus becoming able to contrast these things with Scripture. That is, in fact, what I think I'm doing in most of my work on Societas Christiana. It may be that between you and I it's less of an actual worldview-foundation level conflict and more of a worldview-application level conflict. Out of time for now.

Thanks, Tim. One comment. In standard usage, statements like "He shall cover you with His feathers and under His wings shall you trust" and "Then the Lord said to Abraham, go up out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees and go to the land which I shall show you," are, indeed, propositions. See below for a brief definition:

***QUOTE***

In modern philosophy, logic and linguistics, a proposition is what is asserted as the result of uttering a declarative sentence. In other words, it is the meaning of the sentence, rather than the sentence itself. Different sentences, even in different languages, express the same proposition when they have the same meaning.

Sometimes one says that a proposition is what is expressed by a closed sentence, to distinguish it from what is expressed by an open sentence, or predicate.

Not only declarative sentences express propositions. Yes-no questions also express propositions, questioning them. The utterance of declarative sentences usually asserts propositions, but some declarative sentences might express propositions without asserting them, as when a teacher asks the students to comment some saying. Questions and assertions are kinds of speech acts. Searle and some other authors claim that every speech act has a propositional content.

Non verbal signs can also express propositions. Warning and information traffic signs do it. It is useful to keep in mind that not only sentences express propositions, in order not to think that they are alike. If propositions have a structure, it is not equivalent to the syntactic structure of a sentence.

Propositions are usually said to be the object or content of beliefs, disbeliefs and some thoughts (representative thoughts). Some authors, like Davidson, also affirm that propositions are the object of other attitudes, like desire and wanting. Desire, belief etc. are then called propositional attitudes.

Modal operators like possibility and impossibility have propositions in their scope. What is possible or impossible is not the event or fact, but the proposition related to them.

Propositions are true or false. That is the feature that distinguishes them from other meanings or thoughts, like norms. Propositions are truthbearers, like some sentences or beliefs. Events, facts or states of affairs (which in philosophy are not synonyms) are truthmakers. This distinction stands on the much debated correspondence theory of truth.

Whether propositions are real entities, and if so of what sort (e.g., Platonic abstracta), is a matter of philosophical dispute.

Anyway, propositions by definition are not physical entities. Therefore philosophers discuss whether propositions do objectively exist in a Platonic realm or they are mere abstractions or something in between. If propositions are mere abstractions, they do not exist, but it is adequate to talk about them as if they existed. Otherwise there will be the danger of reductionism.

I dropped your comments here about Drs. White and Svendsen into the objective exegesis machine, and nothing came out.

I wonder: should I send it back to the shop, or should you re-read Steve's comments on the method Dr. Svendsen uses to interpret scripture and answer the direct questions Steve has asked? cf. Dr. S's recent series on his blog regarding the Lord's table -- was that cartesian exegesis or something else? Was he using only expert application of grammatical technology, or was it more than that?

To take another example--in his recent exchange with Owen over baptismal justification, I think that Svendsen has made total mincemeat out of Owen. And, evidently, Owen thinks so too because he changed the subject. Instead of engaging Svendsen's exegetical counter-arguments, he has resorted to emotional exhortion, viz., is Svendsen prepared to apply Pauline anathemas to Luther and other sacramentalists?

Owen begins with an appeal to his Scriptural prooftexts, then--when challenged on his own grounds--sidesteps the exegetical questions entirely. On this score, Svendsen is operating exactly like I'd expect a trained NT scholar to operate--whereas Owen is operating like a sophist.

Steve, alright, I see a bit better now what you mean by "propositional revelation." Thanks for posting that. I don't disagree with it, insofar as I understand it. There's a lot of confusion out there, it seems to me, about these things. I think of the individual who, God bless him, once seriously told me that the reason I like Italian food is because the first time I ever had it my mind engaged itself in this really complicated abstractionistic-propositional analysis of Italian food and concluded that it corresponded to reality that I like Italian food. Taste didn't matter to this guy, or anything else associated with the body. Everything was "propositions." That's the kind of reductionism I am against if and when I ever talk negatively about propositions. Maybe that's the Clarkianism you spoke of, I don't know.

Frank: I'm not going to get into another blog war about Svendsen or White, sorry. I don't read Svendsen's blog on a regular basis, so I didn't read his series on the Lord's Supper. I'm willing to stipulate that maybe he said some good things there and demonstrated a more sophisticated engagement with Scripture than he has in his various controversies with me. The bad tone for interactions between me and these guys was, I fear, set in stone back in June of 2003 on Julie Staples's board, and I don't know how to, or if it is possible to, undo the tremendous damage to discourse that was done there. One thing is for certain, because their worldview is founded upon a reductionistic concept of "the Gospel", and because they see dire threats to that "the Gospel" nearly everywhere they look, whatever they may do at other times (like when they aren't in the middle of a war with someone they don't like) anytime any threat to their Gospel-reductionism arises they DO retreat to Cartesian-style exegesis. It's how they talk, Frank. The language of Descartes's "clear and distinct ideas" is all over their exegesis of Romans and Galatians in particular, as is the pessimistic "The opponent disagrees with my clear and distinct ideas because he doesn't like the truth" corollary to Cartesian rationalism. And in the contexts of their never-ending thermonuclear war against "Romanism" they DO treat Scripture like they are a couple of naive positivists, and in the process they wind up totally distorting the Reformation concept of sola Scriptura. These men simply aren't reputable defenders of the Reformation's principles. Their absolute fanaticism for a handful of sentences about "soteriology" completely blinds them to the larger and wider world of discourse, and to the deep problems inherent in their own positions. I don't apologize for saying that, and I don't care how sarcastic you continue to be toward me.

To clarify my own coinage, what I mean by Cartesian exegesis is exegeting the text of Scripture in a historical vacuum with regard to original intent and the background information which figures in our determination of original intent. This is analogous to Decartes' attempt to clear his mind of all his cultural presuppositions.

As a practical matter, no one can, in fact, wipe the slate clean. Left to our own devices, the historical vacuum is filled in by our current cultural presuppositions. A classic example would be the historicist school of interpreting Revelation--of which Hal Lindsey is a contemporary illustration.

I'm not using "Cartesian" in the sense of "clear and distinct" ideas, or the epistemology of Continental Rationalism.

Enloe is, of course, free to assign a different meaning to the phrase. I just wish to clarify my usage from his.

And I'd add, to reiterate the example of Svendsen's ongoing exchange with Owen, that Svendsen is not doing Cartesian exegesis as I define the phrase.